PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 5 



recent American work on the Starfishes of the N. Pacific, 

 allusion is made to certain very variable species which are 

 on that account difficult to classify, as in the cases of insects 

 and Crustaceans which I have cited above. The President of 

 the Zoological Section of the British Association, in the course 

 of his address, attempts to explain some of these cases of 

 variability by an effect of surface tension, different forms 

 being assumed by the pseudopodia. In the report of the 

 Southern Sea Fisheries Committee, particulars are given of 

 the fisheries at various places along the Dorset Coast, mention 

 being also made of the damage done to them in the Lulworth 

 district by warships firing, about which representations 

 have been made to the Government. The first well authen- 

 ticated specimen of a flying fish taken on the British Coasts 

 occurred at Wyke Regis, near Weymouth, last summer, the 

 length being llfin. An interesting observation was made 

 in the S. of France at the end of last September, on the re- 

 surrection of large numbers of fish of several species which 

 had buried themselves in the muddy bottom of a canal, 

 which had been entirely dried up by the long continued 

 drought. As soon as rain came and formed small pools, 

 the fish began to rise, none the worse for their burial. A 

 similar circumstance is suggested as a cause of the occasional 

 beds of fish-remains found in the old Red Sandstone and 

 elsewhere, the fish having, it is supposed, buried themselves 

 in mud and died, the water not having come in time to enable 

 them to rise. The British bird fauna has been enriched by 

 the following species, \vhich, though only casual stragglers, 

 have not been before recorded. The pine-bunting (Emberiza 

 leucocephala) at Fair Isle, Oct. 30, 1911 ; the thrush- 

 nightingale also at Fair Isle, of which there was one previous 

 doubtful record ; the American peregrine (Falco peregrinus 

 anatum), two examples in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire ; 

 the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris), three in 

 Romney Marsh, and the Alpine ring ouzel, a sub-species (Turdus 

 torquatus alpestris) at Guestling, Sussex. The Passenger 

 pigeon, a species which not long ago used to exist in vast 



